Kansas City Distillery Rolls Out Budget-Friendly Bourbon to Compete With Kentucky

(Photo: J. Reiger & Co.)

Last week, Kansas City-based J. Rieger & Co. distillery expanded its catalog with a straight bourbon designed to rival Kentucky’s heaviest hitters.

Simply dubbed Rieger Straight Bourbon, the 90-proof whiskey is made with a high-rye mashbill of 56% corn, 30% rye and 14% malted barely. Departing from established tradition, the expression undergoes sweet mash fermentation and a two-step distillation process that utilizes both column and pot stills. J. Rieger claims that the technique — passed down from the “Johnny Appleseed of Whiskey,” Dave Pickerell — imbues layered flavors of orange marmalade, cracked pepper and lightly toasted coconut.

Aged at least four years in the distiller’s rickhouse, the spirit’s defining talking point is its wallet-friendly $30-$35 price tag. Rieger describes it as a midwestern reply to bourbon’s thoroughly southern reputation.

“We want our hometown and the entire midwest to have a go-to bourbon that they can hang their hats on that’s not from Kentucky,” Andy Rieger, president of J. Rieger & Co., remarked in a news release. “While most bourbon lovers gravitate toward the shelf drivers like Maker’s Mark, Buffalo Trace, and Knob Creek, we wanted to make an incredible bourbon that can go toe-to-toe with any of these giants of American Bourbon from both a taste and price standpoint.”

Hometown pride crops up frequently in the brand’s work. In 2022, the distiller unveiled the first bourbon to be distilled in Kansas City since Prohibition. Since then, it’s signed on as the official spirits sponsor of the University of Missouri and rolled out a quartet of whiskeys in collaboration with the Kansas City-based Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

For more information on its new straight bourbon offering, check out the brand’s website here.

 “We think our distilling team absolutely knocked this out of the park and produced a delicious bourbon that will make the midwest proud while our marketing team oversaw a world-class package design come together,” said Rieger.

Rieger Straight Bourbon Tasting Notes, Via the Brand

Nose: Candied citrus and baked bread

Taste: Orange marmalade, cracked pepper and lightly toasted coconut

Finish: Mild tobacco and a toffee-like sweetness.

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